


La Vie En Rose

by Indybaggins



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Character Study, Dancing, Falling In Love, First Kiss, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-27
Updated: 2009-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indybaggins/pseuds/Indybaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney McKay is one of his generation’s strongest technical dancers, if not the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Vie En Rose

 

 

Rodney McKay is one of his generation’s strongest technical dancers, if not the best. 

His parents sent him to dance and music lessons before he even began pre-school. A child prodigy, he had been trained in classical ballet since age four, started touring the U.S. with the American Ballet Company along with his sister when they were only fourteen and eleven years old, and became the male lead of the prestigious Bolshoi ballet company in Moscow at seventeen. 

Rodney was slim back in Russia, with golden curls and a broad smile. As his body filled out in his mid-twenties he had to adjust his style, rely on pure strength more than agility, and he became famous for his skill in conveying emotion on stage. When dancing, all his energy focused, Rodney had a dominating presence that was rare to find and impossible to suppress. 

Usually it was chalked up to a desire to steal the spotlight, that he was a spoiled little brat, and later, a difficult, abrasive man. Truth was, he really knew no other way than to dance like that, with every muscle of his body straining, arms underlining the music, the sound of his feet coming down from a jump like bold exclamation marks. 

Most directors had argued with him over it, had tried to change him into something calmer, gentler, but Rodney could argue with the best. Combined with his ability to easily lift anyone and his near-perfect footwork he got the leads he wanted (in fact, he had been quoted as saying, “If you don’t think I’m the best, you’re a complete moron.”), and dance the hell out of them. 

In his thirties Rodney also gained credit for his composing abilities, a lifetime spent between classic orchestras and producers clearly paying off, and in an article that came out on his thirty-ninth birthday he announced he would do a world tour with a self-produced production as a final step before retiring from dancing and focusing completely on composition. 

Critics immediately hailed it as the most anticipated show of the year. 

 

\---

 

 

John is a supple, effortless dancer. He doesn’t stand out from those around him, doesn’t dance leads often, doesn’t seem like he tries as much as the others, somehow. But when he jumps, it’s as if he flies, as if, for a single moment, he will break through the gravity-pull of the stage, with nothing but the sky supporting him. 

In his mind, John knows a jump like that is mainly illusion, something that’s taught to every young dancer, but to him, it’s always been more. It’s his strongest point, and also his secret delight: he _knows_ his jumps, his body understands them, and they’re the fundamental reason he’s there, onstage, dancing. 

Through the years, John has continually selected the ballets he will dance, the parts he will audition for, merely on their jumps. A grand jeté is wonderful, three in a row will make him grin, more than ten means John is one of the few male dancers in the world who can do them without falling of the stage. 

Auditioning is something John hasn’t done in years; in a world as small as his, his reputation tends to precede him, but today, today is a whole new game. 

At age thirty-seven John still feels strong, but he knows he’s in the last years of his career. Ballet isn’t kind to the body. He has at one time or another dislocated most of his vertebrae, hair-fractured his shinbones, ankles, feet more times than he can count or frankly, feel. Most dancers retire long before that, either because the competition became too strong or because their bodies have been used up, pushed to the limit for far too long. None of those dancers are him though. 

With one last deep breath, John forces a charming smile at the woman who comes out the ‘door of doom’ (dubbed that by the twenty-three dancers who’ve emerged before him), and passes her by. He has only a moment to register that she seems happy (and wow, was she really the first person cast that morning?) before he’s inside. For an audition room it’s large, huge sunlit windows, but his gaze is immediately drawn towards the small table and the men sitting behind it. 

 

\---

 

 

Rodney hates the audition process. They’re all idiots, the young dancers, no longer trained as perfectly and ruthlessly as he once was. They know how to dance, sure, but they don’t live it like he does. They go through the routines, the steps, some with a serene smile on their face, others with frowns of concentration. For a normal production, they should have been fine, he thinks, but what he’s looking for is different. 

Rodney had always planned to write something. Compose the one ballet that would give him fame beyond dancing. He has had most of the music nailed down for years, knows what he wants to do. But he also knows he needs the right people to perform it for him, the ones that’ll inspire the missing pieces he still has in his head. They need to give his music bodies, make every tone into a reality. 

So that’s why he’s sitting in a warm, blindingly sunny room watching bland personality after bland personality pass him by. Radek is at his side, taking notes, actually talking to the people, but Rodney’s just focusing on how they dance. 

He’s given them something too complicated to learn in an hour (or five) so he knows they’ll fail. He just wants to see them do it. Some will stop altogether after too many mistakes. Those are the ones he just points towards the door. Others will try harder and harder, get frustrated and overstep, fight the music. Those Rodney understands a little, but they still have to go. 

He knows what kind of person he wants for each part and has vague ideas about the gender but isn’t too set on anything, so that’s why when he finds his first male lead (calm on the surface, aggression underneath, smooth but harsh, loud percussion) it’s a woman. 

She’s petite, dark brown hair, and she fights the music, but in a way that makes sense to him, her movements liquid and filled with temperament. He can tell she hates to lose, she’s grinding her teeth, eyes flashing, a sheen of sweat on her brow as he makes her go on and on. She has spirit and grace and something really intense he wants the violins to capture and in the end it’s Radek who has to tell her to stop dancing, Rodney’s already too lost in writing down the notes for her, making this hers. 

Rodney listens enough to get her name down (Emmagan, Teyla) but misses the smile of gratitude she gives him as she leaves, clutching her newly-signed contract in her hand. 

 

\---

 

 

John is surprised to see only two people, at a production like this there are supposed to be more, but he covers his surprise by nodding at the man on the left. The man’s answering smile is genuine, and John finds himself relaxing a little. 

John knows who they are, everyone does. Radek Zelenka, the grandson of Anna Pavlova and director of the New York City Ballet. And next to him is the man they’re all here for, Rodney McKay. Famously reclusive in the last couple of years, genius dancer, incredible ass. Or that’s what John had heard, anyway. 

John steps to the middle of the room, gives another nod, and the music starts. He hadn’t looked much at the instructions they were given, knowing he could never learn a whole scene in that period of time anyway. Instead John takes a moment to really _listen_ (slow tempo but changing fast, an exquisitely layered melody) and starts dancing. 

As in a dream, his feet take him up, up, he doesn’t know if the music really calls for it, it’s nothing like a grand finale, but he does it anyway. 

He dances on, and on, and on, taking a couple jumps he knows aren’t perfect, that seem lopsided and maybe even broken but he doesn’t care. The sweat is dripping in his eyes, his breath coming in fast gasps, when Zelenka finally says, “That’s enough, thank you.”

And McKay looks at him, eyes sharp blue and analytical, and says, “How do you feel about dancing a women’s part?” 

 

John remembers dancing when he was eight, jumping up, up, higher and higher, just for that one second of air, of freedom. He also remembers pointing his toes while he jumped, stretching his arms just right, because he had been imagining that he was a bird (who could fly away). 

Inevitably, he would always come down, feet in the grass then, later even more when his father talked to him about what was appropriate for a boy and what wasn’t. 

Because of that, John had only learned to dance officially at age thirteen, behind his fathers back. At eighteen, when he should have been at Harvard, he was at Julliard instead, living off his scholarships in a tiny one-room New York apartment, training until he couldn’t move, until every muscle in his body ached, until his feet were so sore he couldn’t walk. 

He never regretted a minute of it. 

So when McKay asks him whether he would like to be a ballerina, and hell, he doesn’t even care if there’s going to be a pink tutu, as long as he gets the creative freedom he was promised, John nods calmly and says, “No problem.” 

 

\---

 

 

Even now, dancing feels far from easy to Rodney, in fact it’s the single hardest thing he has ever done, and ever will do. He needs to focus all that he has to dissect the space around him, the way his muscles need to carry him, the way the music fits with every minuscule movement. But he gets a startling satisfaction from it, to know he’s the best, know he can push himself again and again to be. 

What he puts into words while looking over his dancers, an eclectic group of traditionally trained and not, male and female, old and young, is “I don’t care why you came here. Rent to make, passion, idiocy. I don’t care what your problems are, or what you’re thinking about. I just need you to dance like you mean it, got it?”

And they all nod. 

There’s Teyla, sitting comfortably cross-legged on the floor and paying sincere attention to him. Elizabeth, strong and proud, rail thin but eyes blazing with passion for what she’s here to do. Next to her Miko, a frail Japanese girl who moves like a bird, small and economical, he just wants to put some sort of electronic sound to her whenever he sees her. Behind her Ronon, a huge man in light blue tights, strong, with a bright rumbling laugh and a history in street dance, Cirque Du Soleil, and martial arts. And then, to the side and dressed in black, John. The man who dances like he can fly. 

These will be his leads. There are more, of course, backups and group dancers, but those he trusts Radek to select and train. These on the other hand, these he needs to do himself. 

Miko will get to open with a solo, Rodney has already decided. 

Then Ronon to break her carefulness, fast, surprising, passionate. 

Elizabeth to take over from him, to lift and spin and scatter across the stage like a leaf in the wind. 

Then Teyla, liquid grace, seduction as well, and Rodney has no qualms about that, he knows Teyla’s strong enough to lift Elizabeth, she’s soft where Elizabeth is stiff, strong where there is tension, graceful where there is force. It will be an exquisite pas de deux. 

And he wants to end with John. John like the reach for the endless, overly strong, overly there when the music is not. 

But the problem is John needs support. Anyone who can jump like that is wasted lifting ballerinas on stage; Rodney had recognised that within two seconds of seeing the man dance. But Ronon doesn’t have the technical background to do it, plus he is needed in too many other scenes, he wants Ronon to wrap his body around Miko, to ground her, to tangle the two of them together in something intimate and rough. Which leaves… 

 

\---

 

 

“I’ll be doing the finale with you?” John asks, trying very hard not to let his face give anything away. After Rodney’s comment at the audition he had assumed he would be supported by Ronon, which would have been fine, hell, they’d even practiced already. 

He had never thought that...

“I thought you were...” _retired_ , John means to say. But Rodney takes it differently.

“Yes, I am the director. And choreographer, and composer,” Rodney sounds smug, “but that doesn't mean I'm not the best you'll ever dance with.”

John nods faintly. It _is_ an honor to dance with Rodney McKay, he knows that. But he's never cared all that much about honor anyway, and Rodney is everything he advertised. Overly arrogant, impolite, and yes, perhaps a musical genius, and a pretty amazing choreographer, but the attitude... 

Rodney was the most in-your-face director John had ever worked with. His hands always saying more then he wanted to, fluttering, softening harsh words and bringing out muttered compliments. Hanging limply by his side when he was disappointed, tracing figures and notes in the air when he was excited. Rodney’s eyes were always on them, his one hand making notes on his laptop about music, tone, movement, his other clutching a cup of coffee. 

Rodney’s always there. Whether John comes an hour early or stays until midnight, Rodney is there, ticking away, playing on the piano, sometimes even singing the melodies when he thinks no one can hear. John isn’t sure the man ever sleeps. 

And John had to admit it had been quite an experience to see a bound-to-be-epic ballet being written this way, from them, for them, through them. He had seen Elizabeth, Teyla, Ronon and Miko become their pieces and their music. But not much had happened with his. 

Until now, he guesses. 

Rodney moulds him into a pose, hands sure on his shoulders, arms, thighs, and then tells him to jump slowly. John does, after a moment of hesitation, Rodney's hands strong on his sides, and then he's being lifted, held up, jeté after jeté, in slow motion going up and down, letting Rodney take more and more of his jumps out of his hands as they go on. 

After a couple minutes, Rodney abruptly stops, says, “Huh,” and wanders off to make some notes on his computer, not even breaking a sweat. John, on the other hand, is trembling on his feet, more technically and personally challenged than he has been in years, his heart beating fast, skirting the edge of elated. 

And the next day, they do it again. 

John trains with the others and makes sure he is warmed up through most of the day, because Rodney comes out for ten minutes, sometimes fifteen or even half an hour, to lift him, try out different things that involve rotating him and throwing him into the air with startling ease.

But still there is no music. 

Where all the others have their pieces, their definition of who they need to be, quietly gorgeous (Miko), loudly heartbreaking (Elizabeth), a little cynical (Teyla) or darkly humorous (Ronon), John has nothing. 

Sometimes Rodney will hum a piece of melody at him when he sees him. John is pretty sure he does it unconsciously, but he gets the pieces stuck in his own head regardless. It always sounds almost wistful. Too slow and light to be a finale. 

 

\---

 

 

Rodney, even though he has never told anyone besides Radek, would have preferred to be a pianist. 

He never really did try, because even at twelve Rodney had known he would never be extraordinary at playing the piano. Not in the way he was when it came to ballet. But he would have preferred it. 

Jeannie didn’t. She loved to dance more than anything, and then at seventeen gave it up for a family. She could have been a prima ballerina, hell she _was_ , and instead she chose an English major and a whiny kid. 

Exercise had never come naturally to Rodney. He had a good ear for music and rhythm, a great mind for the technical, and as long as he could figure out which muscle had to do what at which tone, he could dance. But he could never just let go, not the way he was asking his dancers to do now. 

He asks them to improvise. To draw on any experience they have that isn’t ballet. Of that, they have many. They've all done street theatre, yoga, meditation, been clowns (Miko) or strippers (Ronon), Rodney doesn’t care where it comes from, just as long as it's there. 

But the hardest part of the whole symphony is something he hasn't foreseen. It's John. He had wanted him to be female at first, but as soon as he saw John jump he knew John was exactly what he needed. But John doesn’t fit the music, or, more importantly, the music doesn't fit John. And Rodney can't create with something that captures John. 

John is, like every dancer, graceful. He looks like he belongs in the sky, and at the same time he leans and slinks, but he’s far from smooth. He has a high-pitched, dorky laugh, and Rodney had seen him trip over an umbrella stand (that was the day symphony number seven was discarded for good). 

John seems like he should be a seducer, Rodney thinks, the quintessential playboy, but even after four weeks he still blushes every time Rodney touches his hip. And he steadfastly looks away whenever any of the women change. 

In short, Rodney has no idea who John is. And every time he thinks he has it figured out, (a wink to Teyla means a burst of trumpet, a too-long gaze at Ronon’s ass means drums) John goes off and does something to contradict all of it.

Like kiss Rodney. 

 

\---

 

 

“…I’m sorry. I mean, I didn’t want to…” John coughs and forces himself to stop now, before he makes a total fool of himself. 

He doesn’t even know what possessed him. Just that Rodney had been right there, his strong hands on John’s arms a familiar touch by now, and John had suddenly thought that ok, maybe the man of his life did come with a temper, tights and orange leg warmers and he should just take a chance already. 

And that’s when he had pressed his lips to Rodney’s. 

Rodney doesn’t even kiss him back at first, just stands there, but then something seems to shift because he holds onto John and carefully, carefully slides his lips over John’s. 

John feels him trembling and then deepens the kiss, until he feels out of breath and giddy, and when Rodney looks up at him it’s with something of wonder in his eyes. 

And John thinks _Yes. Yeah, this could be it._

 

 

 

 


End file.
